The present invention relates to sample books, especially books intended for the display of film, fabric, cloth, carpet, papers, wallpapers, and other similar articles.
It has been well known in the art to produce books of sample fabrics, or the like, which a vendor typically would use to display exemplary specimens of his goods. Such goods are usually relatively flat, flexible articles which are bound together at their top or side edge to form a portfolio-like compilation. A potential vendee would then be able to peruse through the samples by simply paging through each leaf of the book. By briefly bending one or more of the samples, the vendee can thereby compare a plurality of such samples as required for his specific needs.
There has, however, been a problem with such a procedure. Frequently the vendee has a need for a swatch of the sample for color matching, fabric comparisons, identification, or to contrast the particular sample with those of other vendors. Most solutions to this problem have been unsatisfactory. Either the vendor must leave the entire sample book with the vendee for an indefinite period of time, or a piece of the original sample is physically cut from the sample page, or a sample must be ordered from the fabric manufacturer for subsequent transmission to the vendee. These solutions have been costly, unnecessarily destructive or actually cause lost sales.
The present invention solves this problem by providing a sample book having both full size samples plus a plurality of miniature swatches which are easily removable by several vendees for their commercial needs. Such swatches preferably are either themselves perforated along at least one edge or are disposed on cards which are perforated for easy tearing out of sample books. Preferably such swatches bear some identifying indicia, for example, vendor or manufacturer name, style number, etc.